SNES CRT Question

[SUMIRE]

Is it normal for a fair few SNES NTSC/Super Famicom games to come with black borders top and bottom of the screen on a 4:3 CRT TV? I just presumed all the NTSC games would fill the screen? I just noticed games like Final Fight have borders.

[dyer60]

Yes it is normal.

You would have thought they would run full screen, but a lot don't! Can't remeber if Fianl Fight is one but I'm pretty sure even Street Fighter II is the same!

I think a lot of the time to progarmmers reduced the screen real estate to increase speed/performace.

[Escape-To-88]

As Dyer says it's performance related. A fair few titles have it not least all of the Super FX games including Yossy Island.

[SUMIRE]

Ok, thanks for the replies guys, very much appreciated.

[Leon Retro]

As others have stated -- a few NTSC SNES games have borders of varying size. It doesn't look good, but it helps with perfomance in demanding games. I'd say the majority of games for the system are full-screen.

[SUMIRE]

As others have stated -- a few NTSC SNES games have borders of varying size. It doesn't look good, but it helps with perfomance in demanding games. I'd say the majority of games for the system are full-screen.

Yeah, to be honest, I always had memories of them being full screen that was why I asked, so was kind of suprised to see some of the more popular titles with the borders. I do not recall any of the NTSC Megadrive games having borders. Now I know though!

[Hirst]

I remember people talking about the huge borders in Street Fighter II even back in the day.

[SUMIRE]

I remember people talking about the huge borders in Street Fighter II even back in the day.

I do but not on the Japanese version.

[dyer60]

I do but not on the Japanese version.

Oh I remember, it was something I always used to throw at my SNES owning mates! “Look at the size of those borders compared to the Mega Drive version, it’s blast processing your machine needs!” I had to back down when one of them imported SF Zero 2, having said that it had borders and loading but man did it look good!

[SUMIRE]

Oh I remember, it was something I always used to throw at my SNES owning mates! “Look at the size of those borders compared to the Mega Drive version, it’s blast processing your machine needs!” I had to back down when one of them imported SF Zero, having said that it had borders and loading but man did it look good!

Haha, yeah the good ole SNES vs Megadrive days! To be honest nostalgia wise, I prefer the Megadrive.

[Leon Retro]

The borders didn't bother me in Turbo edition. The graphics look really nice -- and it plays well.

[Yakumo]

Yeah, to be honest, I always had memories of them being full screen that was why I asked, so was kind of suprised to see some of the more popular titles with the borders. I do not recall any of the NTSC Megadrive games having borders. Now I know though!

About 40% of NTSC SFC games have a border of some sort. It's very common, especially on fighters. In fact I think most fighters on the system are bordered. The Mega Drive practically never had this issue.

[Mayhem]

Mega Drive has a much speedier CPU for starters...

[vanpeebles]

It's funny, some of the later snes games, the console was on the cartridge and the actual snes was pretty much a dumb terminal just providing joypad and tv out.

[CAPCOM]

Get a Phillips Monitor and a connecting lead and stretch them away plus it gives an authentic CRT coin op scan-line look.